Twice Alive 

A Spiritual Guide to Mothering Through Pregnancy and the Child's First Year

by

Beth Osnes

$17.50

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Book Review: The Boulder Daily Camera
Twice Alive: A Spiritual Guide to Mothering Through Pregnancy and the Child's First Year by Beth Osnes. WovenWord Press, 186 pp. $17.50.

Since being greeted by that little blue line on a home pregnancy test 2 1/2 years ago, I've soaked up just about every book on motherhood I could get my hands on. I've spent the wee hours of the morning, which is when my son has the hardest time sleeping and usually wants to nurse, devouring everything from practical parenting tomes such as "The Baby Book" by Dr. William Sears to more political fare, including Ann Crittenden's "The Price of Motherhood" and, most recently, Judith Warner's "Perfect Madness: Motherhood While these books delve into important issues facing mothers from whether to co-sleep and how long to breast feed to the guilt, anxiety and regret that can suffocate today's American mothers each left me feeling like something was missing.

But for me, "Twice Alive: A Spiritual Guide to Mothering Through Pregnancy and the Child's First Year" by Boulder mother and writer Beth Osnes filled this void. More than a practical pregnancy and parenting book, "Twice Alive" transcends the realities and complications of motherhood to focus on the personal, spiritual effects of creating, raising and loving another human being.

In the spirit of "Operating Instructions," Anne Lamott's funny and honest account of mothering her infant son, Osnes uses the journal she kept during her pregnancy and first year with her daughter Melisande to give voice to the spiritual gifts of pregnancy and early parenthood. Like Lamott, Osnes doesn't sugarcoat the experience. From the ravages of morning sickness, which Osnes says can make a woman feel "like biting the head off of a dog," to her pleas with God to help her new baby fall asleep so she can get some shut-eye, Osnes makes room for the unpleasant and, at times, overwhelming, emotions and sensations that accompany creating and caring for a new baby.

Yet, she does not dwell on the negative. Rather, Osnes peels back the layers of her own expectations and fears to reveal the spiritual essence of motherhood in its purest, rawest form. In one passage, Osnes describes the existential wonder that permeates her pregnancy: "Who is leading this child by its new budding hand," she writes, "drawing the human form out of a miracle of cells and life energy?"

Later, as she prepares for birth, Osnes reflects on the more surreal realities of her situation: "I walk my walk and talk my talk and do my mundane, daily chores, all with another human being's head wedged upside-down in my pelvis."

Along with Osnes's own experiences, "Twice Alive" provides tools to help women reap the greatest benefits from their own spiritual journey through pregnancy, birth and motherhood. The book, for instance, offers advice on how to design a baby shower. The focus is not on choosing the right party games or appetizers, but on creating a ceremony that will celebrate and honor the "genuine majesty" of this time in a woman's life.

"With no malice inten(ded)," Osnes writes, "baby showers propagate a commercialism that belittles and makes 'cute' the birthing experience. You, brave mother, are just the gal to usher in a more soul-nourishing tradition. As with any foray from the status quo, it takes a concerted effort and a bit of spirited courage to travel new and richer ground."

While "Twice Alive" is focused on the individual experience, it reaches at times beyond the personal to explore the need for mothers to share their values and work together to have them represented in government policies and corporate practices. It is in these moments that Osnes's own activism shines through. Osnes is a founding member of Mothers Acting Up, a movement aimed at mobilizing mothers to ensure the health, education and safety of all children, and her convictions and ideas for accomplishing this important feat make reading "Twice Alive" an even richer experience.

But in perhaps the most inspiring and moving passages of "Twice Alive," Osnes uses the story of her own mothering decisions from asking her older brother and his wife to raise her first son, Ben, a child born when Osnes was in college and not ready for motherhood, to allowing herself to fall in love with a daughter she had not yet been granted permission by the South African government to adopt to communicate the difficult yet crucial choices all mothers must make.

It was through these experiences that Osnes reaches her conclusions: Motherhood is a precious, powerful and potentially fleeting gift, one that should be cherished and supported by both women and the societies around them. Such a message is particularly important in an age where women are frequently criticized for being less-than-perfect mothers, yet are often not provided the resources necessary such as affordable health care, flexible work options or adequate paid family leave to care for their children.

Osnes invites us, as mothers, to honor and love ourselves and to use our combined political voice to make the job of mothering easier for women everywhere. That makes "Twice Alive" a welcome and important addition to the growing canon of literature on parenting and motherhood.

Carlotta Mast is a mother and writer living in Boulder.
in the Age of Anxiety."  reviewed for The Boulder Daily Camera,   April 10, 2005